This invention relates to a digital camera.
A digital camera has a use of recording data as material of a composite image, for example. The composite image is widely used to print a greeting card with a photo, a framed photo seal, etc.
Patent document 1 (JP-A-2001-45352 (refer to paragraph 0030, FIG. 7c)) discloses a digital camera for combining a still image to combine (default image) previously stored in nonvolatile memory, etc., and an image representing a subject (subject image) into one for display until a shutter switch is pressed in a photographing mode.
However, according to the digital camera disclosed in patent document 1, if the default image selected by the user does not contain any pixels to be superposed on a subject image, the user cannot distinguish between a state in which no default image is selected and a state in which a default image is selected in the photographing mode; this is a problem. The default image not containing any pixels to be superposed on a subject image is an image a part of the front of which the whole of a subject image is laid out for.
Patent document 1 also discloses a digital camera for combining a default image previously stored in nonvolatile memory, etc., and a subject image into one image for display until a shutter switch is pressed in a photographing mode. As a default image and a subject image are combined into one for display in the photographing mode, appropriate framing responsive to the pattern of the default image is made possible.
Generally, the top and bottom of a default image are determined by the pattern represented by the default image. Generally, information defining how a default image and a subject image are to be combined is previously recorded in nonvolatile memory, etc., together with the default image. To select a default image and record a subject, the user must frame with a camera at the ready so that the top and bottom of the pattern represented by the default image match the top and bottom of the subject image when the default image and the subject image are combined based on the information previously recorded in nonvolatile memory, etc. However, if the user cannot determine the top and bottom of the default image from the default image displayed in the photographing mode, the user cannot determine at the photographing time which of portrait and landscape orientations the user should frame in with the camera at the ready to find a match between the top and bottom of the pattern represented by the default image and the top and bottom of the subject image in a playback mode.